If all of your choices are based on a cause that originates outside of yourself then what free will to you really have. You may have the free will to choose the direction but does the cause limit you in anyway to that direction and are you able to create a direction without a cause?

I don't believe in the term perceptual free will. I wouldn't even call that a real term. You are getting into more of a discussion about reality and perception. That is a topic that none will fully agree on as reality is what you make it, your perceptual view of the world can only be defined by yourself. This topic is best left for another discussion as my view on the world is much different than others.

When you talk of free will your using a religious term. The perceptual free will makes no since because all beings have free will. The term shouldn't even exist and only exist based on religion. There is nothing a person can not choose to do, no direction he or she cant go. To perceive that you have no choice is ridiculous. This is why i don't agree with your term, other than that it is not a term that has been used, ever.

"I'm not getting into anything. I am simply responding to a question you posed."

But you are trying to stir the discussion to talking about free will. The statements you have made have been one sided to the talk of free will and less to the discussion of cause and affect as it pertains to the universe. You made it all about human existence when i asked about the universe.

"Not really. That's like saying depth perception can only be defined by oneself."

In my opinion I dont think this analogy fits to your argument. Depth perception compared to ones perception on life are too drastically different.

"We are subject to causality. The choices we make cannot be made differently, but they are choices all the same."

I agree we are subject to causality but i disagree that the choices we make cannot be made differently. We have the ability to change our opinion and reverse our choices to an extent. But this still does give a answer to my question.

"It is unimportant if this free will is something strictly perceptual."

What do you mean by this? At one point you say we have perceptual free will then at another time you say free will isn't perceptual but a basic mechanism we use for making choices.

There really is no right answer, it is a question to spark a deeper discussion of life. It is a question that should unlock thoughts by some who just follow the actions and reactions of others instead of making your own own actions and coming up with your own theories. But you must think in universe terms and not just what cause and effect happens within our own planet.

Can one person create a separate cause or is human life just an effect of the original cause.

The law of causality states that: "every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause". This is true of both animate and inanimate objects. The difference between the animate and inanimate modes of response to causality is that inanimate objects have only one potential reaction to an event while animate beings have variable potential reactions to an event.

Where humans are concerned, "variable potential reactions to an event" stem from 2 key neurological phenomena: mental feedback and anticipation.

MENTAL FEEDBACK:
There have been many feedback mechanisms identified within the brain. We would not be able to function without these mechanisms. Mental feedback allows us to concentrate and focus. Without it, thoughts would flit by us in an instant and be gone. Mental feedback allows us to think about our thoughts in a sustained way: to be self conscious. We would not be able to make plans without mental feedback.

ANTICIPATION:
Making plans is simply a more organized and strategic form of anticipation. Anticipation can span periods from half a second to half a century. Thanks to mental feedback, we can adjust our plans as new information comes in. We constantly anticipate the future . . . and this is the key to our escape from the tyranny of causality. Anticipation gives us a temporal advantage over causality. Causality must wait for the future to arrive in the present, but we can anticipate causality and the future and (hopefully) be ready for it when it arrives.

That's how we direct our own actions. To the extent we are successful at anticipating the future, we are self-determined. Self-determinism IS free will. Free will is the ability to act in self-determined ways.

Self-determinism, or free will, is a paradox. It's not something we start off to exercise . . . rather, it's a product of the interaction between causality and human intelligence. We are destined to have free will :-) We have no choice but to be self-determined. When determinism meets human intelligence, it becomes self-determinism.

There are no uncaused effects. But thanks to mental feedback, we are able to anticipate causality and the future, thus freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the Prime Mover. If everything is determined by causality, then so are our mental processes: causality does not stop at our skulls. What this means is that mental feedback becomes a causal factor like anything else: external stimuli, heredity, experience, ethics, education, etc. However, because mental feedback springs from our own minds, it is an important causal factor. By and large, we act in accordance with mental feedback. There are times when we're limited by other causal factors but we are nonetheless self-determined, thanks to mental feedback and anticipation.

okay think you got the question mixed up with a neurological question you wished to address. I am tired of listening to people talk about life as simply a neurological explanation. people tackle every queastion this way at one time or another and guess what, it doesn't explain anything but how the brain works and not why. the question why is the answer that science can not explain in my opinion. When science tries to explain it, it makes it sound like everything is pointless or based on the studies we shouldn't have thoughts at all, much less interact with each other.

This question should have been answered in your own opinion not those of scientist you have read about. If these are your own findings then maybe a more personal approach could have been used. Still though i dont think you answered it at all. You just tried to give me a definition of neurological occurrences in the brain.

The law of causality states that: "every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause".

Can our small impact on the universe help create another cause that leads to an opposite effect or is it just part of the ongoing effect from an original cause?
This question has nothing to do with how the human brain operates.